How to Stop China from Freeriding on American AI

Word reaches us from War on the Rocks that the Chinese have been caught freeloading on American artificial intelligence — or, more precisely, caught running the majority of global AI workloads on open-source models of their own devising. Washington, apparently roused from its slumber by the release of China's Kimi K3, has now been 'forced' into a policy debate about Chinese AI. Forced. As if discovering your kitchen is ablaze forces a conversation about fire safety. The conversation has arrived, somewhat later than the conflagration.

Enter Scott Bessent, Treasury Secretary, brandishing sanctions over the alleged 'theft' of American models. Theft! From the industry that spent the better part of a decade flinging model weights onto the open internet and begging developers to build on them. One might call it a victimless crime, except that the alleged victims are now complaining that their gift wrapped itself up and moved to Shanghai. Chinese open-source models, we are told, now account for the majority of global AI workloads — a statistic that might sting less if the U.S. had not spent those same years handing out the ingredients.

Let us savour the word 'freeriding', because it takes a certain chutzpah to accuse the emerging power of hitching a ride on an open ecosystem that your own champions declared the future of AI. The Treasury's sanctions list is the policy equivalent of locking the stable door after the horse has not merely bolted but launched a popular open-source foundation and is now running the majority of the world's workloads. Kimi K3 has forced the debate, as the article says; it has also already won it. One can almost hear the next round of export controls being drafted in the same breath as the next round of 'surprised' statements from U.S. labs that their technology has, once again, gone walkabout. Charming.